The Story of Locke & Key

Locke & Key is a horror comic created by writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez. The series tells the story of widower Nina Locke and her three children, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode, as they move to their family's ancestral farmhouse in rural Massachusetts. As is so often the case in horror fiction, they discover the house to be haunted, though not merely by restless ghosts. The house contains a portal to a demonic realm, one that can only be opened with a mystical object known as the Omega Key. The house hides this and several other enchanted keys that bestow great power on those who control them. Over the course of the series, the various Locke family members learn more about their troubled family history, the true nature of their home and its keys, while fighting to prevent malevolent spirits from harnessing the power of the portal.

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The Locke & Key saga breaks down into a three-act story, with each act being told in the form of two six-issue miniseries. It remains to be seen if Netflix will stick to that structure (perhaps telling the story over the course of three seasons) or if the adaptation will expand on the original story.

Locke & Key's Release Date

Netflix has yet to reveal an official release date for Locke & Key. However, this is hardly surprising, given that the streaming service often doesn't reveal release dates until mere weeks ahead of time.

Filming for the first season of Locke & Key began in February 2019 and is expected to wrap up in June 2019. It's possible the series could debut as early as fall 2019 (perhaps in time for Halloween), but an early or mid-2020 release date seems more likely. No doubt the series will require a significant amount of post-production and special effects work before it's ready for consumption.

Locke & Key's Cast and Crew

The Locke & Key series is developed by Carlton Cuse, Meredith Averill, and Aron Eli Coleite, and all three will serve as showrunners. Hill is both executive producing and writing the series. Stephen King's IT director Andy Muschietti is also executive producing. Muschietti actually directed the pilot episode when the series was previously in development at Hulu, but that pilot was scrapped when the series shifted to Netflix.

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The only cast member from the Hulu pilot who remains in the Netflix series is Jackson Robert Scott as Bode Locke. The show's cast also includes Connor Jessup as Tyler Locke, Emilia Jones as Kinsey Locke, Sherri Saum as Ellie Whedon, Griffin Gluck as Gabe, Darby Stanchfield as Nina Locke, Laysla De Oliveira as Dodge, Petrice Jones as Scot, and Thomas Mitchell Barnet as Sam Lesser.

Locke & Key's Development

Locke & Key has had an unusually troubled journey from page to screen. In fact, by the time the Netflix series premieres, there will be three entirely separate pilot episodes for Locke & Key in existence.

Dimension Films was the first production company to attempt a Locke & Key movie, acquiring the rights to the original miniseries - Welcome to Lovecraft - after its publication in 2008. The rights then shifted to Dreamworks in 2010, with producers Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Steven Spielberg joining the project and developing it as a TV series. 20th Century Fox greenlit a pilot episode in February 2011, with Josh Friedman serving as writer and showrunner and Mark Romanek directing. Unfortunately, Fox announced in May 2011 it wouldn't be moving forward with the series. The pilot was later screened at Comic-Con in July 2011.

Fortunately, word surfaced in May 2018 that Netflix was picking up the series instead. Confirmation arrived in July 2018, with Netflix opting to film a new pilot episode and replace most of the cast from the Hulu project. New casting announcements began trickling down in December 2018, and production commenced in February 2019.